China’s space rice experiment could help astronauts grow their own food - Interesting Engineering

Once upon a time — April, in fact — they went to the Moon. Now, they'll never leave home again. As of Tuesday, all four Artemis II astronauts have announced new life plans, and returning to the void of space isn't in any of them. It's a shame that NASA (and its Canadian cousin the CSA) will be losing this level of talent and experience from its active duty astronaut program. At the same time, these four brave humans accomplished an extraordinary achievement in the flight around the Moon, and that's as good a time as any to move on to new things. Remember that the Orion space capsule, which they lived in for 10 days, is essentially just two small rooms stacked on top of each other. That's a long time to share space with other people, in a place without showers, high-end meals, family, trees, or daylight. Plus, if anything were to go wrong, you'd die in the vacuum of space. No pressure, then (certainly not in the vacuum of space). Would you want to do that twice? Probably not. With that experience behind them, it can't be too surprising that they're ready to hang up the gloves. So, what is an astronaut to do if not floating around in microgravity?

The offspring of mice that spend time on the International Space Station are more vulnerable to external stressors, a new study finds. More work is needed to understand the potential health impacts on human astronauts' families.